Naples & Pompeii

---

---

It has now been days since my last blogs...Sorry!!! what can I say....been busy. When I last wrote, we had made our way to Rome and had spent a full day walking around the wealth of historical monuments interspersed with the current day city. Next stop, was a one day bus trip to Napels and Pompeii. This meant an early start to the day...but we were usually awake from about 5 so it was not an issue. Given it is the tail end of the peak season, the bus company was getting a variety of small groups from an assortment of nationalities. Enough to fill two busses but it also consequently meant that the poor tour guide had to say everything three times. Once in English, once in Spanish and once in German. It was truly amazing to listen to someone fluent in three languages flip effortlessly from one dialect to another.

Naples (Napoli)...what a strange place. Dirty and edgy....yet it seems to have been forgotten about by Rome and left to wither and die. We are told prior to getting off the bus to stick to our guide (Fabiano) , hang on to our valuables and to watch out for the mafia! Not a friendly start to the tour but an interesting one all the same. We only have one hour for a quick walk around the main sights of the palazzi. With the temperature in the high 30s a quick walk was probably all we could handle. The highlight of which was the 13th century Castel Nuovo with its huge turret like entryway and ancient (empty) mote. I can't say I really took much in from this tour as Fabiano was obviously more fluent in French and preferred to speak to the four frenchies in our group. Either way it was a good little side trip that enabled us to stretch our legs and tick off another city.

Pompeii is a fascinating, large, place. Streets upon streets of what were once houses. The cobbled streets still containing the raised stones for pedestrian crossings. We dutifully followed Fabiano until we could stand the heat no more. No where near as hot as the original residents felt for sure....but after several streets of looking at the walls of houses, including one brothel, we had absorbed as much as we could. Seeing the body casts was the most fascinating for me. Several of the bodies remain on display throughout the ruins....made possible by pouring plaster into the area containing the body and then extracting when set. My brain still can't really fathom how this worked. However the result is all the more haunting for it. After 2-3 hours it was time to head back to Rome on the bus. Flight to Athens tomorrow...

---